The band prepares to rock Kilroy’s for the second time on their Blood, Steel & Fire tour

Derek Wall

A&E Editor

In early March, Omega Crom rolled through Thunder Bay and performed an intense live set at Kilroy’s. For those who missed this up and coming heavy metal act out of Vancouver or would love to catch them again, you have another opportunity this Wednesday.

The band is enjoying life on the road, but it hasn’t always been a smooth ride for the West coast group. Since the late 90’s, Omega Crom’s lead vocalist and founding member, Johnny Ketlo, has had a hard time getting the band launched. But after years of members leaving and joining the group, and even recovering from a few break-ups, Omega Crom is finally on the road publicizing their first full-length album release, Blood, Steel & Fire. The Argus was able to catch up with Omega Crom’s guitarist, Wayne Holden, enjoying some downtime in Toronto.

“You learn how to overcome lots of diversity,” commented Holden when asked about what the band might have gained from their tumultuous past. “We all kind of got together and persevered through it all… There was a time when releasing an album and going on tour seemed pretty far-fetched.”

Holden and the rest of the Omega Crom most certainly have some words of wisdom for anyone aspiring to be a professional musician: “No matter what happens, keep on going, and eventually good things will happen.”

It would seem that in today’s musical climate, being a part of a heavy metal outfit comes with more than the usual challenges normally associated with making music for a living. There are a few additional challenges that are unique to the genre.

“Cities like Vancouver have been shutting down all of the good [heavy metal] venues and turning them into nightclubs,” explains Holden. In fact, he stated, one of Vancouver’s most popular metal venues, The Coal Vault, was recently reconfigured into a nightclub. Holden further mentioned that when the quality venues get shut down, the only other options for performances are often dirty, run-down basements: “It’s tough finding good quality venues.”

With a past like the one that lies behind Omega Crom, one suspects they are especially looking forward to what the future holds for them. They are in the planning stages for a Western tour later on in 2010, as well as another Canadian tour coupled with an East coast tour in August.

The show happens to fall two days after the official CD release date on April 5^th so concertgoers can expect spirits to be high.

Also performing at Kilroy’s will be Rusted Dawn, Jagstog, D.E.A.D., Minotaur, and Last Boss.

Art by Christi Belcourt

Thunder Bay Art Gallery to host reception Friday

Kenneth Lloyd

The Thunder Bay Art Gallery’s current exhibition “Celebrating the Creators” focuses on art created by Aboriginal artists across North-western Ontario. The work of 55 artists will be available for the public’s viewing, as will as the art of Christi Belcourt.

Joanne Arnott refers to Belcourt on the gallery’s official webpage as “a Métis visual artist with a deep respect for the traditions and knowledge of our people. The majority of her work explores and celebrates the beauty of the natural world.”

Belcourt’s art revolves heavily around the natural and the spiritual. The artist’s webpage (www.belcourt.net) explains the nature of her creations – no pun intended. “From the core of Mother Earth to the infinite Universe,” she writes, “all that we need as human beings spiritually is already here. Our spiritual selves exist among, within, and in full partnership with the other spirits that exist in this realm. Spirits that are everywhere; within the waters, within the plants, within the rocks, and by our sides as Spirit Helpers.

“The Creator is within each and everyone of us, in fact we exist not only in this physical realm, but dually in the spiritual realm at the same time. We need not look further than what exists around us, or perhaps more accurately, we need not search outside of ourselves.

“And we need not await death in order for the mysteries of our world to be known to us, for what we need is already within and around us. At every moment we co-exist with the spirit world in the present. We are more powerful as human beings than we realize because we are complete with all the knowledge of the Earth and Universe.”

On Friday, April 12^th, the Thunder Bay Art Gallery will be hosting a reception for the Celebrating The Creators exhibit and Belcourt will be on site to give a talk on her art.

The reception will also have a performance from Little Bear Singers and a screening of the portrait series by Adrian Fox-Keesic and Brent Wesley, I Am Indigenous.

Crystal Castles - Crystal Castles

FabDave

I had heard of Crystal Castles a year or two before their album dropped and, right before the actual disc was in my hands, I was ready to declare them over. The group’s debut album is, after all, little more than a polished compilation album with a couple of rerecorded demos thrown in. But somehow, like David Lynch’s “Inland Empire”, all of the disconnected experiments merge together to create something more meaningful.

In the years since its release, it has become a bit innocuous in the indie dance scene, but the energy around the release was undeniable, and the tracks keep bobbing to the surface of the mp3 blog scene. Crystal Castles took the energy building in the 8-bit community and turned it into something more.

There is something novel about taking the 8-bit sound and translating it into a consistent, relatable album. Even as more mainstream artists are plugging in their gameboys and seeing what they can pull off, tracks like ‘Alice Practice’ and ‘Xxzxcuzx Me’ remain far beyond any imitators. Crystal Castles connect so well because they integrate the bleeps and bloops into more familiar genres. ‘Courtship Dating’ sounds like it could be a Justin Timberlake track (which is probably why he, Timbaland and 50 Cent jacked the instrumentals for Ayo Technology).

The final track on the album, ‘Tell Me What To Swallow’, surprises with its shift to soft, echoey vocals and a gently strumming guitar, letting the listener know that there are real people behind the digital mask. Their punk sensibililties are also in showcase when they want to take it there.

Alice Glass in particular, when allowed to let loose, bridges the gap between electro and punk. The denouement of ‘Crimewave’ is a reminder that the whole track started with real guitars and drums (though you’d never know it otherwise). Overall, the more alienating tracks (the ironically titled ‘Love and Caring’) fit well with the dancefloor ready fare (’Vanished’, ‘Air War’, and the subdued ‘Goodtimes’), with neither being too off-base or mainstream to ruin the flow.

The real benefit of Crystal Castles can be seen in their effective sampling. Though they clearly maintain their own sound, their music is patched together with the incredible talent of others, such as Covox, Van She, Death From Above 1979, and other tastemakers.

They have themselves inspired some incredible acts like You Love Her Coz She’s Dead and brought greater attention to 8-bit acts like Kap Bambino. If the few tracks that have been finding their way into the blogs are any indication, the next Crystal Castles album is going to be even more in your face and obtuse - and I welcome the challenge.

A review of The Godfather by Mario Puzo

Giovanni Scalzo

Business Manager

When most people think about The Godfather, scenes from the movie immediately fill their minds. Most will remember Marlon Brando’s portrayal of Don Vito Corleone, the Godfather, and I cannot blame them. The 1972 movie was a cinematic masterpiece that respected its written counterpart by visually bringing the novel to life in a way that will probably not be topped by any remake.

Nevertheless, The Godfather novel is the original narrative of this epic piece of fiction, and many details from the novel are absent from the movie. Thus, while the film is more popular, there is some content from the book that is lost in translation when it was adapted to its visual representation.

Mario Puzo’s literary classic The Godfather originally released in March 1969. Opening in the last week of August 1945, immediately following the end of World War II at Don Corleone’s Long Island home on the day of his daughter’s wedding, the work chronicles the life of Don Vito Corleone and his family. It is in this setting that we are introduced to the Don, his immediate and extended family, his business associates, and important members of his other “family:” the organized crime syndicate that he controls.

The Don is the head of the Corleone Family, the most powerful criminal organization in the United States. His crime family is only one of six big mafias based in New York City. In particular, the Corleone Family specialized in gambling and controlling various unions, however, the Corleone Family’s true strength came from the Don’s innumerable contacts, many of them being judges, politicians, and policemen, and businessmen.

Despite his immense wealth, the Don is a powerful benefactor that protects the people of his old neighbourhood better than America’s mainstream bureaucracy. His old neighbourhood was made up of poor southern Italian Americans, most of them immigrants that were exploited as cheap labour and discriminated from mainstream American society. The Don provided his neighbourhood friends and their children with opportunities to prosper in American society.

Mario Puzo’s work is revolutionary in that it accurately portrays the criminal underworld of America’s Cosa Nostra. Puzo’s The Godfather fully captures this criminal world and how each Family is structured and run.

More than any work before it, The Godfather shows how membership within this criminal underworld brought immense power and wealth to Don Corleone, but it also reveals how this life brought him suffering. Don Corleone refused to be exploited by the American elite and Italian gangsters, and so he founded and built his criminal empire in the hopes of escaping poverty and providing his family the opportunity to flourish in America. He hoped that by gaining this power and wealth, his children and his grandchildren would become the elite who controlled American society the same way he had to dominate the criminal underworld.

Don Corleone founded his Family because he refused to be slave working for the wealthy American elite while he earned little. Ironically, while his life as the Don brought him wealth and power, it enslaved him to dangers that required his attention at all times.

Puzo’s The Godfather is the most underrated novel because it is eclipsed by its cinematic counterpart. Although the movie is a masterpiece, and it is great to see it hold its popularity almost 40 years since it was first released, the cinematic version does not perfectly translate over from the novel.

There is some content that is present in the book that is omitted from the movie, however, the most important attribute that is lost in translation is the literary narrative that describes how each character thinks and why they do certain acts, something that the acting, which was as brilliant as acting could ever get, just could not capture in the same way as the literary narrative. So while it is important that everyone watch The Godfather, it just as important to read it as well to fully comprehend and experience this epic piece of fiction.

Ken Dryden - The Game

Mike St. Jean

Layout & Design Editor

As a hockey fan, I have always enjoyed reading about the lives of the game’s greatest stars and the often overlooked challenge of trying to juggle living out of a suitcase on the road with being a member of an elite group of athletes. More times than not, however, sports books are disappointingly one dimensional, with very little insightful commentary included, leaving the reader feeling unfulfilled.

The Game by Ken Dryden is definitely the opposite of the run-of-the-mill biographical book about a sports superstar. Written almost in the form of a fictitious novel, the book follows one of the NHL’s all-time great goaltenders through the course of his final season with the legendary Montreal Canadiens of the 1970s.

The reader is left with affectionate and almost down-to-earth portraits of many of the star teammates Dryden played with, including Guy Lafleur, Larry Robinson, Guy Lapointe and Jacques Lemaire, as well as his record-breaking coach Scotty Bowman, who made the Canadiens of the 1970s one of the greatest dynasties in sports history.

The book is much more than a sports book, however, as Dryden uses mundane, everyday occurrences as a starting point to back-track through his past and provide the reader with insight into many of the important events that shaped his life, his career, and the teams for which he played. From living in the spotlight as a member of Canada’s most historic sports franchise to residing in Montreal during the height of English-French tensions in Canada, Dryden sheds light on many of the aspects that shaped not just the business life of an athlete, but more broadly, life in Canada in the 1970s.

Since its release in 1983, The Game has been praised as the greatest hockey book ever written, and also as one of the greatest sports books ever published. Throughout its easy to read format, which arranges events into chapters that represent days of the week, Dryden puts on display both his love of hockey and the high level of intelligence and insight that allowed him to pursue a law degree at McGill University while tending goal for Montreal.

Rapture Ready by Daniel Radosh

Brandi Cameron

Editor-in-Chief & Self Immolator

Daniel Radosh, in his novel Rapture Ready, is a Jewish man writing about the parallel universe between evangelical Christianity and pop culture. Published in 2008, this book is a fascinating mix of perceptions on culture, the economy, identity politics, and so much more.

“If you are trying to communicate to people, it makes sense that you want to find a common currency, a bridge that you can communicate across […] Now, having said that, you can do it with style or you can do it tackily. But that’s true in any endeavor, not just the Christian retail world,” states Andy Butcher, editor of The Christian Retailer, in his interview with Daniel Radosh.

To which Radosh responds, “[…] from what I’ve seen, tacky is winning.”

Radosh immerses himself in Christian pop culture for a year and tells the world what he sees, what he learns, what he rejects, and what he is surprised by. The culture he examines is mainly American, but it also mirrors the growing evangelical pop culture in Canada.

“This is a book about popular culture. It’s about entertainment, leisure and shopping. It’s also about politics and the culture war that engulfs America. And it’s a little bit – not as much as you might think – about religion,” writes Radosh in the introduction.

However, this book is definitely about religion – as a manmade entity, as both an economic plan and a fascinating climb into an uncanny culture. Radosh experiences many of the hypocrisies that everyday people see in Christianity, but he also meets people along the way that shift his perspective.

This book is merely a study: including the history of evangelical pop culture, the current status, and where it may go in the future. Radosh watched Christian movies, read books, attended conferences, concerts, raves, theme parks, comedy shows conventions, and hung out with everyone and anyone he could find who is affiliated with the Christian pop culture industry.

By the end of the book, Radosh had been tricked into hearing peoples’ testimonies through comedy, caught himself buying an opinion or two and had revealed his own views to many pastors, managers, organizers and speakers involved in this industry.

Aaron Weiss, the ‘mewithoutYoufrontman,’ reveals this to Radosh in their eight-page long conversation on various controversial topics: “Most people probably never had an abortion. So you can look at that […] and say ‘That’s the “murder” [sic] that I want to draw attention to.’” He questions the lack of attention paid to other forms of “murder,” such as: death by failing to share abundance (therefore starving other people), killing in a war, or the sanctioned death penalty.

He also states, “Jesus never mentioned homosexuality once. How has it become such an issue? Strange how all things that Jesus actually did talk about fail to become issues.”

These are just some of the hundreds of topics Radosh brings up with people who are well versed in evangelical pop culture. He presents both sides of various topics, but no easy answers. This book is a thought-provoking study for any American, and I argue, Canadian academic citizen.

The Flatliners - The Great Awake

Mike St. Jean

Layout & Design Editor & Sasquatch Preserver

When many music fans see a new release from the world famous punk label Fat Wreck Chords, they often assume that the album will follow the classic mid-90’s pop-punk style that made the label, and many of its bands household names. Over the past few years, however, owner Fat Mike of NOFX fame has done an excellent job signing new, young bands that have helped Fat Wreck break away from the mold the label created in its early days.

One of these bands is The Flatliners, who joined the label after the strong performance of their 2005 release Destroy to Create on Montreal-based Stomp Records. The Richmond Hill, Ontario four-piece did not disappoint with their first Fat release, The Great Awake, which saw the group break away from their early ska punk sound.

Although all four members of the band were still in their late teens/early 20s when The Great Awake was released in 2007, the lyrical content and melodies found on the album have drastically improved in comparison to their first full-length release.

From the record’s first single, “Eulogy,” to the acoustic-driven “Mastering the World’s Smallest Violin,” The Great Awake sees the group take on a darker, more hard- hitting sound mixed with the catchy choruses and melodies found on their previous releases.

The Great Awake also shows singer/guitarist Chris Cresswell development as a song writer, with songs such as “July! August! Reno!” and crowd favourite “This Respirator” discussing the hardships, as well as the unforgettable moments of trying to make a living as a musician.

Although fans of Destroy to Create may be disappointed with the lack of ska on The Great Awake, the album is definitely worth picking up and giving an honest listen. If nothing else, the record will give listeners a new appreciation for the group, who are barely old enough to be out of high school, never mind awaiting the release of their third studio album, Cavalcade, which is set to come out on April 13^th.

The Flatliners will be making yet another stop in Thunder Bay on April 16^th at the Black Pirates Pub.

Shane Morissey

Argus

The interview started off pretty formal. I prepared hard, thinking of some questions ranging from Bizarre’s thoughts on the rebirth of hip-hop and the influence D12 had on the Detroit scene. I mean, I know not a lot of people cop the albums up in Canada, but outside of being Slim Shady associated they tore up that part of the North Eastern states. They also got a shout out from all-star producer/rapper Black Milk who touches on his experience touring with D12.

D12: The same state J Dilla started in and beats that feel so Detroit. J Dilla’s First Draft album echoes that same grit and rawness Detroit created.

Although cut short of Legendary Status, as those who carved the Golden Era of hip hop, D12 are one of the few groups to embrace it and keep the movement pushing forward. For what is being called ‘the rebirth of hip hop,’ D12 can be thanked for keeping it on life support.

In the interview, he first thing heard is a worn out man; Bizarre just sounded beat and tired. Every question was answered in a mixtape shout out way.

He said what every smart rapper says when asked what they did to get Detroit on the map for hip hop: “We been grinding, just moving and hard work that’s all you know, just get up on your grind.”

He has an album coming out called Live From St. Andrews and the single is Believe with Tech N9ne.

The concert is March 27th at the Outpost.

I saw them last year, like I mentioned, and it was one hell of a show. Even if you hate hip-hop, go, these guys are entertainers. Take advantage of what it’s like to see a professional rap group and take note. It’s back and forth like you wouldn’t believe.

The Dirty Love Band set to play The Office

Esa Keltamaki

Copy Editor & Master Jouster

Music fans are in for a treat. The Dirty Love Band’s [DLB] cross-Canadian tour makes its way to Thunder Bay this week.

This Thursday, April 1^st, The Dirty Love Band will rock the downtown bar The Office. The show will mark the band’s first appearance in Thunder Bay. Hopefully, the first of many.

The London-based band comes to town with consecutive Most Popular Blues/R&B Group London Music Awards. If the DLB wins a third this year, they will be inducted into the London Music Hall-of-Fame. The fivesome is also a current Fan Favourite nominee for the Jack Richardson Music Awards.

A brand-new video for Moon Boy, the first single from the band’s recently released second album Generation Sex will also be available for preview at the show.

The well-liked DLB, a group that began five years ago with guitarist Dennis Habel and keyboardist Kent Merkley, is rounded-out by drummer Teddy Feica, multi-instrumentalist Sean Thomson, and bassist Lucas Johnson. Johnson, who joined the band for the current tour, works in former Our Lady Peace guitarist Mike Turner’s The Pocket Studio.

The group is known for wild, energetic shows involving “gang buster vocals” and keyboardists nearly falling from the stage. The band’s raucous tunes extend from traditional blues tracks to rock and punk influenced blues; their catalogue of music is rife with smash-tastic awesome.

In addition, opening for the DLB is… you? The Office will be holding an open-mic night prior to the main event, so feel free to bring a guitar and hop up on stage.